The present invention relates to distributed feedback lasers, and more particularly, to a surface-emitting distributed feedback (SEDFB) laser having gratings.
A surface emitting distributed feedback semiconductor laser is a device that produces unidirectional, monochromatic, coherent visible light through stimulated emission in semiconductor materials. Such a device has a positively doped side and a negatively doped side that are joined at a junction, and a grating that is etched into an outer surface of the positively doped side. The surface of the grating, upon which a strong conductive material is disposed, provides a means by which coherent photon energy fields may be diffracted. A second order grating design permits deflections of coherent photon radiation to be directed normal to an output window etched into the negatively doped side of the junction through first order diffraction, and directed parallel to the surface of the grating through second order diffraction. The first order diffraction produces a beam of unidirectional, monochromatic, coherent visible light at the output window, whereas the second order diffraction provides a feedback of photon radiation to an active region that is adjacent and parallel to the surface of the grating.
The prior art has employed gratings that were straight line, curved and chirped in order to improve the stability and beam quality of surface-emitting distributed feedback (SEDFB) lasers. Surface-emitting distributed feedback lasers with straight rule gratings are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,744,089, depicted in FIG. 1a herein; constant radius curved gratings are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,307,183, FIG. 1b herein; those with variable radius curved gratings are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,867,521, FIGS. 1c and 1d herein; those with chirped gratings are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,238,531; and arrays of gratings are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,307,183, FIG. 1e. FIGS. 1b through 1d were issued to the present inventor. Surface-emitting distributed feedback laser with straight gratings are also described in xe2x80x9cSurface emitting distributed feedback semiconductor laserxe2x80x9d, by S. H. Macomber et al., Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 51, pp. 472-474, 1987; xe2x80x9cAlGaAs surface emitting distributed feedback semiconductor laserxe2x80x9d, by S. H. Macomber et al., Proc. SPIE, vol. 893, pp. 188-194, 1988; xe2x80x9cTwo-dimensional surface emitting distributed feedback laser arraysxe2x80x9d, IEEE Photon. Lett. vol. 1, pp. 202-204, 1989, by J. S. Mott et al.; xe2x80x9cAnalysis of grating surface emitting lasersxe2x80x9d, IEEE J. Quant. Electron., vol. 26, pp.456-465 (1990), by R. J. Noll et al.; xe2x80x9cNon-linear analysis of surface emitting lasers distributed feedback lasersxe2x80x9d, IEEE J. Quant. Electron., vol. 26, pp. 2065-2074,1990, by S. H. Macomber et al.; and xe2x80x9cRecent developments in surface-emitting distributed feedback arraysxe2x80x9d, Proc. SPIE, vol. 1219, pp. 228-232,1990, by S. H. Macomber et al.
As shown in FIGS. 1a through 1e 1a through 1e, prior art devices have used the variously patterned types of gratings 30 and devices with such grating patterns have achieved some increase in laser power and stability when the laser stripe length 31 is less than 1 mm. However, such prior art grating patterns have not proven effective in lasers having a stripe length 31 longer than about 2 mm. While the maximum achievable power from a semiconductor laser can be increased by increasing the width of the stripe, it has long been known that the beam quality of wide stripe semiconductor lasers is usually many times the diffraction limit. This is described in xe2x80x9cA GaAsAlx Ga1-x As double-heterostructure planar stripe laserxe2x80x9d, H. Yonezu et al., in Japan. J. Appl. Phys., vol. 12., pp. 1585-1592, 1973, for example. The beam quality problem is caused by self-induced waveguiding that arises from a combination of spatial hole burning and index antiguiding (i.e., the index of refraction of the medium tends to decrease when the local carrier density increases) forming self-guiding filaments. This is described in xe2x80x9cObservation of self-focusing in stripe geometry semiconductor lasers and the development of a comprehensive model of their operationxe2x80x9d, by P. A. Kirby et al., IEEE J. Quant. Electron., vol. QE-13, pp. 705-719, 1977. An initially flat wavefront propagating along a uniform wide stripe tends to break up into self-perpetuating filaments that lead to poor beam quality which worsens as drive current is increased. This is described in xe2x80x9cSpatial evolution of filaments in broad area laser amplifiersxe2x80x9d, Appl. Phys. Lett., by R. J. Lang et al., vol. 62, pp. 1209-1211, 1993.
Unstable resonators have been used with a variety of high power lasers. They produce a high degree of lateral mode selectivity with a mode that fills a large gain region and are relatively insensitive to intracavity index aberrations. This is described in xe2x80x9cUnstable optical resonatorsxe2x80x9d, by A. E. Siegman, in Appl. Opt., vol. 13, pp. 353-367, 1974. These characteristics combined with curved (expanding) internal wavefronts that can suppress filamentation makes the unstable resonator approach well-suited to the problem of lateral mode control in broad area semiconductor lasers. Unstable resonator Fabry-Perot devices have demonstrated good lateral beam quality. This is described in xe2x80x9cHigh power, nearly diffraction limited output from a semiconductor laser with an unstable resonatorxe2x80x9d, by M. L. Tilton et al., IEEE J. Quant. Electron., vol. QE-27, pp. 2098-2108, 1991, and xe2x80x9cFabrication of unstable resonator diode lasersxe2x80x9d, by C. Largent et al., Proc. SPIE, vol. 1418, pp. 40-45, 1991. However, fabrication of curved mirrors with required surface smoothness has been problematic.
While resort to the foregoing prior art techniques has resulted in some improvement in small lasers, they have not been able to improve the stability of wide stripe, high power lasers having a stripe length above about 1 mm. Accordingly, Therefore, it is an objective of the present invention to provide for a surface-emitting distributed feedback laser having gratings that overcomes the problems associated with conventional surface-emitting distributed feedback lasers.
In order to meet the above and other objectives, the present invention provides for a surface-emitting distributed feedback (SEDFB) laser with a xe2x80x9cfan-shapedxe2x80x9d grating comprised of substantially straight lines radiating from an origin far away from the center of the gain region. The use of the fan-shaped grating produces good beam quality from broad area SEDFB lasers with high power and high efficiency in lasers having a stripe length of several millimeters.
In general, a grating with non-constant periodicity may be described mathematically by a function "PHgr"(y, z) that represents the deviation of the grating from uniform spacing, and which can be expressed in units of grating phase. This deformation function may conveniently be expressed as a bi-polynomial expansion:                               Φ          ⁡                      (                          y              ,              z                        )                          =                              ∑                          m              ,              n                                ⁢                      xe2x80x83                    ⁢                                    C                              m                ,                n                                      ⁢                          y              n                        ⁢                          z              m                                                          (        1        )            
The fan-shaped grating is represented by a deformation function whose dominant term has a form corresponding to yz. The grating deformation function (1) may advantageously also have additional terms that improve output beam quality of the laser, such as a chirp (z2) term and higher order aberration correction terms that optimize the beam quality. The present invention overcomes a fundamental problem in semiconductor lasers, namely self-induced filament formation and dynamic instabilities that limit achievable beam quality for very high power devices. Based on numerical simulation, the fan-shaped grating leads to a laser design which is stable for very long (e.g., 4 mm) and wide stripe lengths which do not exhibit filamentation. The effectiveness of the fan grating can be understood in terms of the way filaments are created. In prior art curved grating designs, such as shown in FIG. 1d, the curvature of the grating away from the center of the stripe area leaves the central stripe area with a predominantly parallel grating. This parallel grating region tends to encourage filament formation, whereas the curved regions to either side of the central area tend to cause the beam to walk off the stripe. In contrast, the fan shape grating has no region where the grating exhibits parallel lines. Accordingly, beam propagation anywhere within the stripe tends to become spread out by the local grating divergence.